British Columbia is the lone province keeping restrictions

Canada is beginning to get back to normal. This is evident in the fact that every province and territory in the country is eliminating the vaccine passport and mask mandates. However, there is only one province that seemingly has no plans in place to move on from the pandemic — British Columbia.

B.C. boasts its record on COVID, being one of the provinces to have been least burdened by hospitalizations. Despite this record, the governing BC NDP has made no new announcements on when restrictions will be lifted. This is contrary to the rest of the contrary and the world.

It is now apparent that the Omicron variant, although infectious, is milder compared to previous virus mutations. This has resulted in a steep drop in hospitalizations, leading Canadian provinces to chart their way back to normal. This is even the case for provinces like Quebec, which previously implemented extreme measures to lower case counts. Such measures included a curfew, mask mandates and of course, a vaccine passport.

Vaccine passports became part and parcel for every province across the country. However, unvaccinated individuals are now once again permitted to be in public. Every province and territory has now either ended their vaccine passport program or is doing so in the next few weeks. The same can be said for mask mandates.

Nonetheless, British Columbia is lagging. There is no date set for the end of mask mandates, while the current implementation of the vaccine passport is set to "expire" on June 30. This is by no means an end date but rather a review date.

In keeping these measures, one could only assume that B.C. is struggling with its hospitalization capacity, but this isn't remotely the case. Hospitalizations have been falling every day since February 8 and there are currently only 517 people in the hospital. These numbers are far better than those of other provinces, which are now back to normal.

To this end, why is B.C. so behind? It would be a mistake to assume that these extreme restrictions are innocuous. Small businesses are suffocating under the vaccine passport system, given a percentage of the population is now deemed unworthy of being out in public.

Aaron Scally is the owner of the Small Block Brewery in Duncan, B.C. and is calling on the government to get back to normal. "When the vaccine card came into effect, we saw an almost immediate 30 percent drop in business," Scally told CTV News.

Bruce Findlay owns the Lions Rampant Scottish Pub in Maple Bay. He is also voicing his concern about the inaction of the government. "They all say follow the science, and we believe that the science is now saying the passports don't make sense," Findlay said.

B.C. Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry defends the decision to keep the discriminatory vaccine passport. "There's still a risk that people who are fully vaccinated may transmit Omicron to each other," she said. "But we also know very clearly now that they're very unlikely to end up with severe illness."

Tackling this issue would be politically tenable if B.C. had an actual opposition party. As it stands, the B.C. Liberal leader Kevin Falcon has voiced his support for the vaccine passport, giving the BC NDP the oxygen needed to continue with restrictions.

As a result, this province intends to keep itself behind. No longer can we boast about how great we handled the pandemic. Not while the rest of the country and the world is back to normal. Instead, we intend to continue living in a socially distanced illusion that deteriorates the lives of small business owners, children, and every citizen that made their own personal medical abstention.